Relgion is bad - Page 3

sisterX · 07-08-2007, 07:36 PM

Og, you have told us about the processes in the brain which bring about a physical change. Can you please tell us how neurobiology demonstrates the non-existance of a non-material self and the impossibility of such a, in your opinion, hypothetical entity to influence our material brain. Don't just say "it is false", demonstrate how is it impossible.

Og · 07-08-2007, 08:44 PM

Your brain is a massive network of neurons (cells). The cells are connected in a massively interconnected circuit. Signals from the outside world are transduced by your sensory neurons (there are 10s of millions of these). The sensory neurons are connected to other neurons which feed into your central nervous system (and elsewhere). In your brain there are approximately 100 BILLION neurons that have 100 TRILLION connections amongst them (these connections are called synapses and fluctuate based on stimuli received and brain chemistry).

What is clear is that all of sensory experience is neuronal in nature. It is clear that experience is a product of the behavior of a massively complex machine (your brain). There are a massive number of functional imaging and lesion studies and individual electrical recording studies in humans and other animals to illustrate this.

The cells in your brain are deterministic in nature. If they are stimulated, they behave in a regular fashion.

Behavior is a result of stimulus output from your brain to your muscles. At no point along the path of sensory input to behavioral output is there anything that can be modified. You propose some mind/body duality and there is just no method in which some mind thing can connect and effect the brain.

Proposing this soul notion is an illustration of a lack of comprehension of the magnitude of the neural machine inside your skull.

The brain is a deterministic machine.

No room for soul. Signals go in, are processed, and create behavior.

pseudonous · 07-08-2007, 10:00 PM

OK, I like your distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action. I agree there is no free will. However, part of my freedom of action is to evaluate my previous decision making processes and modify them to better obtain my goals. How is the notion of a punishing god incompatible with this perspective?

Og · 07-09-2007, 05:29 AM

Most certainly! You learn from your previous situations. That's one of the powers of our brain computer. It retains information and correlates it with new situations.

The point is that there is ultimately no ability to choose. Options are presented to the brain and a computation is carried out. The result of that computation is the choice you make. People say that they could have chosen differently, but the reality is that they can't. The brain behaved exactly as it was programmed to.

So the notion that a God can punish us for making some choice (i.e. not to accept him or to behave in an evil manner) is illogical. Since we can't truly make choices in a cosmic sense (i.e. our brains are quasi-deterministic machines), the notion of punishing or rewarding us for our choices is wrong.

Og · 07-09-2007, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pseudonous

OK, I like your distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action. I agree there is no free will. However, part of my freedom of action is to evaluate my previous decision making processes and modify them to better obtain my goals. How is the notion of a punishing god incompatible with this perspective?

I want to clarify. It is not incompatible with this perspective. If it is a part of your brain (i.e. an idea you have) that there is a god and that he will punish you for behaving in a certain way then you have a very good illustration of how a concept can manipulate human behavior. So God can exist in the minds of people as an idea (a complex pattern of connected cells) that drives behaviors. The notion of a God as some separate entity outside of the human body is false.

The notion of any individual entity is ultimately an illusion. All boundaries are products of our brain building a representation of the world. What is the boundary between a remote control and a TV? The remote flashes light and the TV responds and changes channels. They are the same process, but the plastic shells that we call "remote" and "TV" are separated by air and have separate power sources... etc. But what's relevant about the boundary between them in a cosmic sense? One flashes, the other responds... There's no choice.. it's a continuum. This is the way that all things work.

Everything in the universe is an expression of the entire realm of nature. Every effect is a confluence of all events. The universe truly is a single statement (uni-verse, one statement). The process that gives rise to your cup of coffee or your children is the same process that produces ghandi, galaxies, and hitler. Call them side effects or call you side effects or whatever. The entire process is a massively interconnected network of which we are all components.

This is the true nature of the universe. The notion of an individual entity is just a product of our brain building a representation of the world. It has no cosmic significance. The notion of an individual god doesn't make sense in this realization either. If there is a god entity, then we are a component of it and identical with it.

jaej · 07-09-2007, 08:52 AM

Og, do you think a deist god could be possible? A god that just created the universe and sat back and watched, not caring about us little humans and the trivial little things we do? A god that honestly doesn't care about us; doesn't answer prayer, doesn't perform miracles, etc. For all intents and purposes he isn't there, but he's the one who created the universe. Do you think such a god is possible?

Og · 07-09-2007, 09:02 AM

I think that's a product of the human brain as well. It extends the first cause notion to the beginning of the universe and expresses a perspective on space time that is a product of our life on earth and not of the nature of the universe as we know it (general relativity and the behavior of time as a property of matter).

Deistic philosophy is basically a "first cause" argument. An individual entity responsible for something such as the creation of the universe is a product of the illusion that you and I are individual entities. This is not the case in a cosmic sense. We are all expressions of our environment.

Saying that I am an individual is like saying that a tornado is distinctly separate from the winds that produce it.

sisterX · 07-09-2007, 09:17 AM

Og ok, i know very little about neuroscience, but is research not still too premature for you to be making such blunt statements? Moreover, what about the ability of conscious intention to inhibit determined processes? Does that not mean we at least have "free wont's" if not free will.

Og · 07-09-2007, 09:48 AM

Quote:

but is research not still too premature for you to be making such blunt statements?

The research will always be premature to make such blunt statements. This is the nature of science and the assumption between scientists and engineers. If you want to know what our understanding of the universe is at the moment, then this is it. The same engineering tools that allow us to construct computers and the internet are the same engineering tools we are using to deconstruct the brain.

Conscious intention to inhibit processes is a determined event. Your intention to inhibit is a determined process given the situation and the action you want to inhibit? Want to know what determined it? It's real easy.. ask yourself what your reasons were for inhibiting. That's a high level description of a massively complex process in your brain.

There are over a century of studies of brain lesions and chemical modifications of the brain using a variety of substances in controlled environments that speak to our capacity to dramatically alter an individual's experience of self and choice and all aspects of consciousness. Brain states = conscious states.

There are several good books on this topic by people like James Watson (of watson/crick DNA fame) "The Atonishing Hypothesis"... and Carl Sagan ("the dragons of eden" for a nice review of brain structure and lesion studies) amongst countless others.

The brain is a neural machine. "Conscious intention" is the product of the machine. It's massively complex and while one part of the brain my produce an innate visceral response, another part may have access to memories and predictive capacity that would allow you to NOT reach into the trap for the cheese. Free won't is an illusion as well. There are many complexes and computation centers in the brain that work in concert to make us who and what we are.

What there is NOT is some mystical thing called the "mind" that is unphysical and exists and is able to influence the brain. This theory shows a lack of understanding of generalized systems behavior (such as the generalized fourier transform) and the complexity of the system involved.

Certainly the soul/mind is presented in terms of something that you could never possibly prove or disprove. It's relegated to the shadows of the complexity of the brain. But what there is is a massive amount of work in a variety of animals in behavioral neurobiology demonstrating how brain states correlate with behavioral and conscious states.

pseudonous · 07-10-2007, 02:30 PM

Og, you have a an interesting perspective but I think it has a few problems if you want to claim its an indisputable scientific fact.

Quote:

The notion of any individual entity is ultimately an illusion...

I agree that the notion of the mind as a real object separate from the brain is an illusion.

Quote:

...All boundaries are products of our brain building a representation of the world. What is the boundary between a remote control and a TV? The remote flashes light and the TV responds and changes channels. They are the same process, but the plastic shells that we call "remote" and "TV" are separated by air and have separate power sources... etc...

The boundary between any two objects is arbitrary but meaningful. An illusion gives a misguided view of reality. Hence the boundary is not an illusion. Consider the boundary between a hydrogen and chlorine atom in a hydrogen chloride molecule. The exact boundary between the atoms is arbitrary. But the choice you make of the boundary will effect your description of the system, and both descriptions will give the same results. There is no meaningful distinction between the choice of boundaries or the dependent description. Yet, the choice of boundaries is not completely arbitrary and some choices are not allowed. The existence of the two separate atoms is a scientific fact.

I see no evidence here for the absurdity of a western god. Though I do believe the idea of a western god is absurd. I also think claiming that science is a religion is just as wrong as sisterX's plan to harm children by misrepresenting evolution. I think you may have fallen to the instinctive desire to believe simple explanations for complex things.

"No one in this world can you trust, not men, not women, not beasts... This (pointing to his sword) you can trust." - Conan's father, Conan the Barbarian